"What was
Bogdanovka? Under Soviet regime it was a model state
farm, where pigs were raised. Now there were no more
pigs, but the empty barracks, without doors and
windows, were awaiting the Jews. It was cold. It was
an early winter, with bitter cold and blizzards. On
the roads we stepped over human corpses of those who
didn't resist the cold, the fatigue. At Bogdanovka,
those who died at night were thrown out daily from the
barracks. Again the roads were paved with corpses. The
Ukrainians were waiting for the thrown out corpses to
strip them. The Romanian soldiers took the better
clothes; the rags were left for the
Ukrainians.
… In the morning of
December the 21st, a hard winter day, we heard
shooting. In our room nobody knew from where it came.
Who shoots at whom?
About an hour later,
Ukrainian police and Romanian soldiers surrounded the
barracks in which we stayed. Up on the mount, some
German and Romanian officers watched, having a heated
discussion about the orders they had to
give.
People were chased from
all the barracks. From above, on the hill, where the
barracks in which thousands of Jews were quartered in
pigsties, smoke came out. Nobody knew what was
happening.
On December the 22nd we
remained closed in the barracks. The killers were busy
with the Jews from the pigsties on the hill. About
2.000 men, women and children were killed daily. They
didn't even shoot the children; they were thrown alive
directly into the precipice, over the fire. The grown
up were killed by shooting. Ukrainian police and
Romanian gendarmes were standing on the edge of the
precipice. They were shooting in turn. Eight who were
resting took the place of other eight, who were tired
from so much shooting.
Groups of Jews stripped
the dead, and pushed them into the precipice behind
the grove, near the bank of the Bug. The corpses fell
over the fire, into the bottom of the precipice.
Initially, the Romanian soldiers put the Jews to
gather dry branches, logs, tree trunks, that were
sprinkled with gasoline and set on fire, the bodies of
the killed Jews being thrown into the flames. That was
the cause of the smoke.
At Bogdanovka, the Jews
were killed until the day of December the 25th. It was
Christmas. The Romanian soldiers were drunk. The
Ukrainians were shooting, just for fun.
The holiday taken by the
killers lasted until the 7th of January 1942. In the
meantime, from those in the barracks, many were dying
from cold, exhaustion and famine.
On 18th or maybe on 20th
of January 1942, the order arrived from the Romanian
Military Command that in the future nobody should be
killed.
In the precipice near the
Bug, the corpses of the killed Jews were still
smoking. Only 120 remained alive.
After the war, a trial
took place at Domanovka, against some Ukrainian
policemen and war criminals.
I went to Domanovka to
assist the judgment. I recognized most of those who
were the killers from Bogdanovka. From the dock, of
course, the Romanian gendarmes and officers, as well
as the German officers were missing.
……………………………………………………………………
Those who were tried at
Domanovka were condemned by the Soviet Court to death.
The death penalty was executed.
Some years ago, before I
immigrated to Israel, I visited Bogdanovka. I felt the
need to see again the places, where my beloved had
been killed.
I had a shock. The
precipice still existed. Among the bushes at the
riverbank, bones protruded from the earth, the bones
of those killed. They were blank, clean, washed by the
rains, snow and winds. I cried
bitterly.
The earth at Bogdanovka is
soaked with blood, the blood of our brothers. A few of
us are still alive. Soon, the veil of forgetting will
fall on these martyrs too, assassinated only for "the
guilt" to be born Jews. And maybe tomorrow, in this
mad world, the women will give birth and raise
children, who may become ferocious assassins, or
innocent victims.
This depends on the devil
or angel in our souls, but also education."
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